Describing the Welsh/Cymry as:

“the nut of the Roman lands”

is very apt!

More seriously the John Davies Hanes Cymru book has an insightful passage on the word.

In my English language version (yes, call me a cop-out) it’s on page 69:
“It would appear that ‘Welsh’ meant not so much foreigners as peoples who had been Romanized; other versions of the word may be found along the borders of the (Roman) Empire – the Walloons of Belgium, the Welsch of the Italian Tyrol and the Vlachs of Romania – and the welschnuss, the walnut, was the nut of the Roman lands.”

It’s likely to be the source of the “wall” in Cornwall too.

(Something highly irregular about my pointing this out to gents called Meirion and Owain.) All the best!

I think Owain, or Mei (or both) have got this a little mixed up. From the little that I don kow, it was the Anglo-Saxon (?) word ‘Welsh’ that means/meant ‘stranger’ – whether or not it was intended as an insult or maybe just that Welsh (or then Brythonic) people were the most common non-AngloSaxon that they came across.

The word Cymro (plural:Cymry) come from a Brythonic word for either friend or brother.

Hope this clears up any perceived in-built anti-Englishnes

I have a solution to this w.r.t. all the Oasis tribute bands. I can supply the necessary tools, do you know where the Gallaghers live?

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You mention the Welsh words for English/England. My friend Owain, another recent Welsh learner, tells me that the Welsh word for English person means something like ‘stranger’, and the Welsh word for a Welsh person means something like ‘friend’. It seems to me there’s an inherent anti-English bias built into the language there, that’s not present in English – the words ‘English’ and ‘Welsh’ having no such alternative meanings.